Archive | February 14th, 2020

UK governments routinely claim to uphold national and international law. But the reality of British policies is quite different, especially when it comes to foreign policy and so-called ‘national security’. This explainer summarises 17 long-running government policies which violate UK domestic or international law.

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British foreign secretary Dominic Raab recently described the “rule of international law” as one of the “guiding lights” of UK foreign policy. By contrast, the government regularly chides states it opposes, such as Russia or Iran, as violators of international law. These governments are often consequently termed “rogue states” in the mainstream media, the supposed antithesis of how “we” operate.

The following list of 17 policies may not be exhaustive, but it suggests that the term “rogue state” is not sensationalist or misplaced when it comes to describing Britain’s own foreign and “security” policies.

These serial violations suggest that parliamentary and public oversight over executive policy-making in the UK is not fit for purpose and that new mechanisms are needed to restrain the excesses of the British state.

The MQ-9 Reaper drone carries four laser-guided, air-to-ground 114 Hellfire missiles, a payload of up to 360kg. The UK has been operating a fleet since 2007 and has struck targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. (Photo: Chris Hunkeler / Flickr)

The Royal Air Force’s drone war

Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) operates a drone programme in support of the US involving a fleet of British “Reaper” drones operating since 2007. They have been used by the UK to strike targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Four RAF bases in the UK support the US drone war. The joint UK and US spy base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, northern England, facilitates US drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. US drone strikes, involving an assassination programme begun by president Barack Obama, are widely regarded asillegal under international law, breaching fundamental human rights. Up to 1,700 civilian adults and children have been killed in so-called “targeted killings”.

Amnesty International notes that British backing is “absolutely crucial to the US lethal drones programme, providing support for various US surveillance programmes, vital intelligence exchanges and in some cases direct involvement from UK personnel in identifying and tracking targets for US lethal operations, including drone strikes that may have been unlawful”.

Chagos Islands

Britain has violated international law in the case of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean since it expelled the inhabitants in the 1960s to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island.

Harold Wilson’s Labour government separated the islands from then British colony Mauritius in 1965 inbreach of a UN resolution banning the breakup of colonies before independence. London then formed a new colonial entity, the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is now an Overseas Territory.

In 2015, a UN Tribunal ruled that the UK’s proposed “marine protected area” around the islands — shown by Wikileaks publications to be a ruse to keep the islanders from returning — was unlawful since it undermined the rights of Mauritius.

Then in February 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in an advisory opinion that Britain must end its administration of the Chagos islands “as rapidly as possible”. The UN General Assemblyadopted a resolution in May 2019 welcoming the ICJ ruling and “demanding that the United Kingdom unconditionally withdraw its colonial administration from the area within six months”. The UK government has rejected the calls.

Defying the UN over the Falklands

The UN’s 24-country Special Committee on Decolonisation — its principal body addressing issues concerning decolonisation — has repeatedly called on the UK government to negotiate a resolution to the dispute over the status of the Falklands. In its latest call, in June 2019, the committee approved a draft resolution “reiterating that the only way to end the special and particular colonial situation of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) is through a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom”.

The British government consistently rejects these demands. Last year, it stated:

“The Decolonisation Committee no longer has a relevant role to play with respect to British Overseas Territories. They all have a large measure of self government, have chosen to retain their links with the UK, and therefore should have been delisted a long time ago.”

In 2016, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf issued a report finding that the Falkland Islands are located in Argentina’s territorial waters.

Israel and settlement goods

Although Britain regularly condemns Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, in line with international law, it permits trade in goods produced on those settlements. It also does not keep a recordof imports that come from the settlements — which include wine, olive oil and dates — into the UK.

UN Security Council resolutions require all states to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”. The UK is failing to do this.

Gaza has about 1.8 million inhabitants who remain “locked in” and denied free access to the remainder of putative Palestine (the West Bank) and the outside world. It has poverty and unemployment rates that reached nearly 75% in 2019.

Through its naval blockade, the Israeli navy restricts Palestinians’ fishing rights, fires on local fishermen and has intercepted ships delivering humanitarian aid. Britain, and all states, have an obligation “to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law” in Gaza.

However, instead of doing so, the UK regularly collaborates with the navy enforcing the blockade. In August 2019, Britain’s Royal Navy took part in the largest international naval exercise ever held by Israel, off the country’s Mediterranean shore. In November 2016 and December 2017, British warships conducted military exercises with their Israeli allies.

Exports of surveillance equipment

Declassified revealed that the UK recently exported telecommunications interception equipment or software to 13 countries, including authoritarian regimes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Oman. Such technology can enable security forces to monitor the private activities of groups or individuals and crack down on political opponents.

UK arms export guidelines state that the government will “not grant a licence if there is a clear risk that the items might be used for internal repression”. Reports by Amnesty International document human rights abuses in the cases of UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman, suggesting that British approval of such exports to these countries is prima facie unlawful.

Arms exports to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has been accused by the UN and others of violating international humanitarian law and committing war crimes in its war in Yemen, which began in March 2015. The UK has licensed nearly £5-billion worth of arms to the Saudi regime during this time. In addition, the RAF is helping to maintain Saudi warplanes at key operating bases and stores and issues bombs for use in Yemen.

Following legal action brought by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the UK Court of Appeal ruled in June 2019 that ministers had illegally signed off on arms exports without properly assessing the risk to civilians. The court ruled that the government must reconsider the export licences in accordance with the correct legal approach.

The ruling followed a report by a cross-party House of Lords committee, published earlier in 2019, which concluded that Britain is breaking international law by selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and should suspend some export licences immediately.

Julian Assange’s arbitrary detention and torture

In the case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange — currently held in Belmarsh maximum-security prison in London — the UK is defying repeated opinions of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) and the UN special rapporteur on torture.

The latter, Nils Melzer, has called on the UK government to release Assange on the grounds that officials are contributing to his psychological torture and ill treatment. Melzer has also called for UK officials to be investigated for possible “criminal conduct” as government policy “severely undermines the credibility of [its] commitment to the prohibition of torture… as well as to the rule of law more generally”.

The WGAD — the supreme international body scrutinising this issue — has repeatedly demanded that the UK government end Assange’s “arbitrary detention”. Although the UN states that WGAD determinations are legally binding, its calls have been consistently rejected by the UK government.

Covert wars

Covert military operations to subvert foreign governments, such as Britain’s years-long operation in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime, are unlawful. As a House of Commons briefing notes, “forcible assistance to opposition forces is illegal”.

A precedent was set in the Nicaragua case in the 1980s, when US-backed covert forces (the “Contras”) sought to overthrow the Sandinista government. The International Court of Justice held that a third state may not forcibly help the opposition to overthrow a government since it breached the principles of non-intervention and prohibition on the use of force.

As Declassified has shown, the UK is currently engaged in seven covert wars, including in Syria, with minimal parliamentary oversight. Government policy is “not to comment” on the activities of its special forces “because of the security implications”. The public’s ability to scrutinise policy is also restricted since the UK’s Freedom of Information Act applies an “absolute exemption” to special forces. This is not the case for allied powers such as the US and Canada.

Torture and the refusal to hold an inquiry

In 2018 a report by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee found that the UK had been complicit in cases of torture and other ill treatment of detainees in the so-called “war on terror”. The inquiry examined the participation of MI6 (the secret intelligence service), MI5 (the domestic security service) and Ministry of Defence (MOD) personnel in interrogating detainees held primarily by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay during 2001-10.

The report found that there were 232 cases where UK personnel supplied questions or intelligence to foreign intelligence agents after they knew or suspected that a detainee was being mistreated. It also found 198 cases where UK personnel received intelligence from foreign agents obtained from detainees whom they knew or suspected to have been mistreated.

In one case, MI6 “sought and obtained authorisation from the foreign secretary” (then Jack Straw, in Tony Blair’s government) for the costs of funding a plane which was involved in rendering a suspect.

After the report was published, the government announced it was refusing to hold a judge-led, independent inquiry into the UK’s role in rendition and torture as it had previously promised to do. In 2019, human rights group Reprieve, together with Conservative and Labour MPs, instigated a legal challenge to the government over this refusal–which the High Court has agreed to hear.

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, has formally warned the UK that its refusal to launch a judicial inquiry into torture and rendition breaches international law, specifically the UN Convention Against Torture. He has written a private “intervention” letter to the UK foreign secretary stating that the government has “a legal obligation to investigate and to prosecute”.

Melzer accuses the government of engaging in a “conscious policy” of co-operating with torture since 9/11, saying it is “impossible” the practice was not approved or at least tolerated by top officials.

UK’s secret torture policy

The MOD was revealed in 2019 to be operating a secret policy allowing ministers to approve actions which could lead to the torture of detainees. The policy, contained in an internal MOD document dated November 2018, allows ministers to approve passing information to allies even if there is a risk of torture, if “the potential benefits justify accepting the risk and legal consequences”.

This policy also provides for ministers to approve lists of individuals about whom information may be shared despite a serious risk they could face mistreatment. One leading lawyer has said that domestic and international legislation on the prohibition of torture is clear and that the MOD policy supports breaking of the law by ministers.

Amnesty for crimes committed by soldiers

There is a long history of British soldiers committing crimes during wars. In 2019 the government outlined plans to grant immunity for offences by soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland that were committed more than 10 years before.

These plans have been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture, which has called on the government to “refrain from enacting legislation that would grant amnesty or pardon where torture is concerned. It should also ensure that all victims of such torture and ill-treatment obtain redress”.

The committee has specifically urged the UK to “establish responsibility and ensure accountability for any torture and ill-treatment committed by UK personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2009, specifically by establishing a single, independent, public inquiry to investigate allegations of such conduct.”

The government’s proposals are also likely to breach UK obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, which obliges states to investigate breaches of the right to life or the prohibition on torture.

A mural by Banksy around a phone box in Cheltenham, the home of GCHQ, Britain’s signals intelligence agency. (Photo: Flickr)

GCHQ’s mass surveillance

Files revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 show that the UK intelligence agency GCHQ had been secretly intercepting, processing and storing data concerning millions of people’s private communications, including people of no intelligence interest — in a programme named Tempora. Snowden also revealed that the British government was accessing personal communications and data collected by the US National Security Agency and other countries’ intelligence agencies.

All of this was taking place without public consent or awareness, with no basis in law and with no proper safeguards. Since these revelations, there has been a long-running legal battle over the UK’s unlawful use of these previously secret surveillance powers.

In September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that UK laws enabling mass surveillance were unlawful, violating rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The court observed that the UK’s regime for authorising bulk interception was incapable of keeping “interference” to what is “necessary in a democratic society”.

The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the body which considers complaints against the security services, also found that UK intelligence agencies had unlawfully spied on the communications of Amnesty International and the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa.

In 2014, revelations also confirmed that GCHQ had been granted authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged lawyer-client communications, and that MI5 and MI6 adopted similar policies. The guidelines appeared to permit surveillance of journalists and others deemed to work in “sensitive professions” handling confidential information.

MI5 personal data

In 2019, MI5 was found to have for years unlawfully retained innocent British people’s online location data, calls, messages and web browsing history without proper protections, according to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office which upholds British privacy protections. MI5 had also failed to give senior judges accurate information about repeated breaches of its duty to delete bulk surveillance data, and was criticised for mishandling sensitive legally privileged material.

The commissioner concluded that the way MI5 was holding and handling people’s data was “undoubtedly unlawful”. Warrants for MI5’s bulk surveillance were issued by senior judges on the understanding that the agency’s legal data handling obligations were being met — when they were not.

“MI5 have been holding on to people’s data—ordinary people’s data, your data, my data — illegally for many years,” said Megan Goulding, a lawyer for rights organisation Liberty, which brought the case. “Not only that, they’ve been trying to keep their really serious errors secret — secret from the security services watchdog, who’s supposed to know about them, secret from the Home Office, secret from the prime minister and secret from the public.”

Intelligence agencies committing criminal offences

MI5 has been operating under a secret policy that allows its agents to commit serious crimes during counter-terrorism operations in the UK, according to lawyers for human rights organisations brin

ging a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

The policy, referred to as the “third direction”, allows MI5 officers to permit the people they have recruited as agents to commit crimes in order to secure access to information that could be used to prevent other offences being committed. The crimes potentially include murder, kidnap and torture and have operated for decades. MI5 officers are, meanwhile, immune from prosecution.

A lawyer for the human rights organisations argues that the issues raised by the case are “not hypothetical”, submitting that “in the past, authorisation of agent participation in criminality appears to have led to grave breaches of fundamental rights”. He points to the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, an attack carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, including some agents working for the British state.

The ‘James Bond clause’

British intelligence officers can be authorised to commit crimes outside the UK. Section 7 of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act vacates UK criminal and civil law as long as a senior government minister has signed a written authorisation that committing a criminal act overseas is permissible. This is sometimes known as the “James Bond clause”.

British spies were reportedly given authority to break the law overseas on 13 occasions in 2014 under this clause. GCHQ was given five authorisations “removing liability for activities including those associated with certain types of intelligence gathering and interference with computers, mobile phones and other types of electronic equipment”. MI6, meanwhile, was given eight such authorisations in 2014.

Underage soldiers

Image on the right: Two cadets from the UK military raise funds for the Royal British Legion on New Market Street, Chorley, UK, 2015. (Photo: Flickr)

Britain is the only country in Europe and Nato to allow direct enlistment into the army at the age of 16. One in four UK army recruits is now under the age of 18. According to the editors of the British Medical Journal, “there is no justification for this state policy, which is harmful to teen health and should be stopped”. Child recruits are more likely than adult recruits to end up in frontline combat, they add.

It was revealed in 2019 that the UK continued to send child soldiers to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan despite pledging to end the practice. The UK says it does not send under-18s to warzones, as required by the UN Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, known as the “child soldiers treaty”.

The UK, however, deployed five 17-year-olds to Iraq or Afghanistan between 2007 and 2010: it claims to have done so mistakenly. Previous to this, a minister admitted that teenagers had also erroneously been sent into battle between 2003 and 2005, insisting it would not happen again.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern at the UK’s recruitment policy in 2008 and 2016, and recommended that the government “raise the minimum age for recruitment into the armed forces to 18 years in order to promote the protection of children through an overall higher legal standard”. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, the children’s commissioners for the four jurisdictions of the UK, along with children’s rights organisations, all support this call.

Posted in UKComments Off on Is the UK a Rogue State? 17 British Policies Violating Domestic or International Law

Pres. Donald Trump’s threat to the Iranian government to bomb fifty-two designated cultural sites in that country was shocking and disturbing, for myriad reasons.[i] The specific number of fifty-two in his tweet of January 4, 2020 pointedly reminds us of the Americans taken hostage by student revolutionaries during what came to be called the Iran-Contra Affair; the hostage crisis ended on Jan. 21, 1981 when the Americans were freed.[ii] Trump’s reference to the tragic situation of those hostages, however, fails to mention the thirty-seven years of misery and terror (1941-1979) that Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi imposed on the Iranian people—which would at least provide a context for why the hostages were taken in the first place.

In 1953 the popular Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was violently overthrown by forces of the Shah, actively supported by the United States and United Kingdom.[iii] Mosaddegh’s efforts to nationalize Iran’s oil, which for many decades had been controlled by the British, led to his downfall. How does one quantify the suffering inflicted on the Iranian people during all those years of the Shah’s reign, which surely brought about the anger experienced by the student hostage-takers of the Americans? An individual life is an absolute value; Iranian lives are worth as much as the lives of any other people of the world. Mosaddegh’s own words of December 19, 1953 provide insights into the frustration that was felt and continues to be felt by Iranians: “. . . my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire [the U.K.] . . . This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property.”[iv]

One is reminded of the fate suffered by the Libyans, whose country was once arguably the most prosperous of Africa, but whose leader proposed switching the country’s international transactions from the U.S. dollar to the dinar and introducing an organization of African nations bound by their mutual interests—which led to the killing of Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011 by NATO forces. Oil pipelines and the countries they traverse reveal much about international politics. Similarly, the attitude demonstrated by a people towards their country’s cultural heritage reveals their level of maturity as participants in the stream of world civilization.

The differing roles played by culture and spirituality in Iran and the U.S. can shed light on the importance, or lack thereof, of cultural heritage sites in each country. The history of Persia / Iran can be traced at least as far back as 7000 B.C. In more recent centuries this nation has defined itself through the Muslim faith, which in its creative force, prescribed daily prayer rule, and dietary laws has produced a centuries’-rich, exquisite body of art. What binds the people of any Islamic nation is their faith, the very fact that they craft meaning in their lives through their connection with a divine being. Available photographs of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani show him immersed in prayer; sympathetic accounts of his life describe his love for poetry and bravery in battle. The millions of Iranian citizens who poured into the streets of various cities of the country during the days of mourning and funeral procession of their fallen general were moved, in addition to the grave injustice, by a spiritual connection with him. Without idealizing or sanitizing the everyday existence of a people, one can describe Iranian lives as surrounded by the beauty of their art, defining rituals of their religion, and depth of understanding acquired through the enormously long history of their civilization. These are features that bind the people of a nation together in the face of demonization of their leaders and crippling sanctions by outsiders.

By contrast, the U.S. is a young country with Christian origins that evolved into a largely secular nation. There is little that binds the American people together, which may explain the misguided Wolfowitzian doctrine that seeks unity through maintaining the populace in a state of fear of imagined foreign enemies. Twenty-first-century American society is fragmented and atomized, as a powerful elite and cooperative media feed citizens a diet of identity-politics issues that emphasizes consumerism and narcissism. If Christian religious faith is present at all in national arenas, it is fleeting, light, and suspicious of poetry and other deep aspects of spirituality.

The U.S.’s drone assassination of Gen. Soleimani and Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at the Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020 presents a compelling case study of selective information presented to the American people by the media. These were not reclusive terrorists hiding in caves, but rather government military officers charged with carrying out official responsibilities for their respective countries. Ilya Tsukanov notes, “Whether against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, Gen. Soleimani and the Quds Force have consistently fought the same Sunni Islamist Wahhabi fundamentalist forces which have targeted US forces across the Middle East and around the world, and which have vowed to destroy the West and America through acts of terror.”[v] It is especially disturbing that Soleimani was traveling openly on a peace mission, with the Iraqi government as intermediary, to forge improved relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.A Nuclear War Has No Victor! U.S. Military Preparation is Underway

The American media’s reporting on this assassination exemplifies the ways in which the occasional fact may be used to obfuscate, rather than inform, readers desiring to learn the truth. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky write: “But even more important [than suppressing information] . . . is the question of the attention given to a fact—its placement, tone, and repetitions, the framework of analysis within which it is presented, and the related facts that accompany it and give it meaning (or preclude understanding).”[vi] Demonization of Soleimani even extended to his being implicated by Vice President Pence in the 9/11 attacks, without any evidence presented.[vii] Such misbehavior on the part of American mainstream journalists stems from their increasingly compromised code of ethics as well as a lack of training in their own profession. The corporate culture to which they belong privileges conformity to a prescribed narrative over a deeper commitment to unbiased investigative work.

American society, with a steadily eroding educational system, lacks unifying civilizational or faith-based traditions that would come into play at critical times. In this utilitarian society, the concept of beauty is virtually lost.[viii] In one telling moment of a class session this author was conducting, not a single student could cite humankind’s need for beauty as an explanation for the gracefulness of major architectural styles. Beauty as a defining aesthetic category was absent in the students’ system of meanings. In a country whose government budgets routinely take away funding for the arts, which has ceased to teach geography on its advanced levels, and which presents history so poorly that history professors lament the confusion experienced by students about world history, it is no wonder that many adults can be manipulated so easily by the media and politicians.

The questions arise: How can Americans grasp at all that the assassination of one of Iran’s admired and respected generals would galvanize the country’s people into a state of closer unity? Can one even imagine an American military official reciting poetry or engaged deep in thought about the transformational power of sublime beauty? Would Americans be distressed at a foreign power’s threats to destroy over fifty of the U.S.’s cultural sites (if indeed they could name even half of such cherished places)? These questions suggest far-reaching implications for the understanding by the average American of the Middle East, and Iran in particular.

A new creative thinking needs to develop on the part of the U.S. leadership. Instead of economic pressure, threats to destroy a nation’s cultural heritage, and invasions of the oil-rich countries of the Middle East, it would be salvific and productive for the U.S. to treat other nations from the principle of moral equivalency, rather than that of moral superiority—as I have argued elsewhere.[ix] This, along with a genuine respect for religious faith and a prioritizing of the arts born of an appreciation of the need for beauty for a civilization’s depth and well-being, would effect positive change in the American people’s worldview. Such innovations would benefit all parties concerned and could end the destructive cycle of Western colonization and plunder of more vulnerable countries.

Posted in USA, IranComments Off on On Bombing Cultural Heritage Sites, Drone Assassinations, and Spirituality

The next Bolivian presidential elections were scheduled for May 3. The scenario in the country remains troubled, marked by the unrest and tensions created by the coup that led to the overthrow of Evo Morales. On the one hand, candidates from the right stand up enthusiastically with the intention of neutralizing any possible resurrection of the left. On the other hand, Morales, although with undeniable popular support, currently does not seem to have enough strength to face the right forces.

Bolivia is currently going through one of the worst phases in its history. A real drop, if we take into account the situation of economic stability that the country lived recently, with the policies of an indigenous and socialist nature of Evo Morales. The coup d’état carried out by pro-Washington groups last year is one of the most advanced activities on the United States’ agenda in Latin America. The failure of the planned coup d’état in Venezuela was not repeated in Bolivia, which fell into the hands of external enemies.

The illegality of the political maneuver that brought down Morales is undeniable. The aggressiveness with which the Bolivian opposition acted makes clear the intentions and modus operandi of groups interested in putting an end to the socialist government. Now, however, with the new elections, the right has its chance to mask the coup with the varnish of legality, thus perpetuating a Bolivian zombie state, totally hostage to the actions of groups outside the national interests.

The popular preference for Morales is undeniable and absolutely noticeable. The 60% majority that declared a preference for the former president makes clear the real popular interest. Never before has Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, experienced such economic growth and such autonomy and freedom for the traditional communities of indigenous peoples. Now, however, the coup perpetrators intend to go back on all the points on which Morales has made progress, subordinating the national economy to the international market and intensifying the policies of repression against native peoples.Bolivia’s Self-Declared/Unelected Coup d’Etat President

MAS – Movimiento Al Socialismo, party of Evo Morales – will have as candidate the former minister of the economy, Luiz Arce. In contrast, reactionary options abound, including, notably, Jeanina Añez, the “self-proclaimed” president of the country, and Luis Fernando Camacho, the businessman who led the protests against Morales at the head of the powerful Santa Cruz Civic Committee, in addition to Carlos Mesa, former president with a more moderate behavior.

It is speculated that Añez and Camacho will unite on a single front in a possible second round in the elections, harming both the MAS popular left and Mesa’s moderate reactionarism. However, it is not just the popular will and full confidence in the legality of the conduct of the elections that should be used to analyze this case.

In fact, South America is going through a terrible time in political, economic and geopolitical terms. With the exception of Venezuela, which survives under a serious economic crisis, all other countries are taken over by governments strongly committed to Washington’s agenda. This means that their direct support for the election of a socialist candidate will be minimal and, in return, the pressure for a coup victory will be exaggerated and cruel, with emphasis on the role played by Brazil, currently governed by Jair Bolsonaro, a neoliberal who has already made clear several times his intentions to use all of Brazil’s regional power to guarantee the full functioning of the interests of the USA – having even, on several occasions, threatened to intervene militarily in neighboring countries, such as Venezuela.

Furthermore, Bolivia’s legal situation is catastrophic. The country has recently undergone a coup d’état and finds itself hostage to the articulations and clashes of different groups. This means that it is possible and likely that there will be fraud and sabotage in the elections if the expectations of the coup perpetrators are not met at the polls. In any case, the coup makers will do their best to win, because they know that the victory would guarantee them a mask of legality, guarantee their international recognition, since for the West the only thing that matters is the democratic appearance.

Posted in USA, ZIO-NAZI, Bolivia, C.I.AComments Off on Bolivian Elections Will be an Opportunity to Legalize the Coup

The North Macedonian House of Representatives unanimously approved on Monday for their country to accept the NATO Accession Protocol, taking the former Yugoslav Republic a step closer towards accession into NATO which is expected to be completed and finalized in the spring. North Macedonia’s rapid accession into NATO is only possible because of the Prespa Agreement signed between Athens and Skopje in June 2018, bringing an end to the name dispute between the two countries that emerged in 1991 with the breakup of Yugoslavia.

The Prespa Agreement, named after a lake that traverses the borders of Greece, North Macedonia and Albania, defined exactly what was meant by “Macedonia” and “Macedonian.” For Greece, according to the agreement, these terms denote an area and people of Greece’s northern region, who continue the legacy of the Ancient Macedonian Hellenic civilization, history and culture, as well as the legacy of Alexander the Great. In reference to North Macedonia, these terms denote the modern territory of North Macedonia, the Slavic language and Slavic people with their own history and culture unrelated to the Ancient Macedonians. The agreement also stipulates the removal of North Macedonian irredentist efforts against Greek territory and to align them with UNESCO and Council of Europe’s standards.

With Greece no longer blocking North Macedonia’s attempts to join NATO and the European Union, no time has been wasted to elevate the Balkan country into the Atlanticist organization. There is no doubt that the Prespa Agreement, which caused political turmoil in Athens and Skopje, was signed only for North Macedonia’s rapid entry into NATO.

The acceleration of North Macedonia into NATO is not only a key priority for the organization to reduce Russian influence in the Balkans, but to continue pressurizing Serbia that was bombed by NATO in 1999 in response to the Serbian military operation against the “Kosovo Liberation Army” terrorist organization. North Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia are the only non-NATO members remaining in the Balkans, however it is important to remember that Bosnia is effectively a U.S. protectorate, while North Macedonia has been trying to join NATO since 1995 when Yugoslavia was completely destroyed in all but name. Serbia has no such ambition to join NATO and is considered a problematic country as it is the only remaining bastion of Russian influence left in the Balkans and is preventing full Atlanticist hegemony over the region.NATO’s Continuing Enlargement Aims at Further Weakening of Russian Influence in the Balkans

Syriza, the ruling Party of Greece at the time of the signing of the Prespa Agreement, knew full well that the Prespa Agreement was largely despised by the Greeks, but none-the-less pushed for it and signed it. It is very obvious that the Prespa Agreement was to accelerate North Macedonia primarily into NATO, especially as not only Syriza, but also the current ruling party of New Democracy is loyal to NATO, with North Macedonia’s entry into the EU being only a consolation prize for Western powers. Less than a month after signing the Prespa Agreement, North Macedonia received an invitation to join NATO on 11 July 2018 with the accession protocol made in February 2019. North Macedonia’s accession into the EU on the other hand has made no progress since the Prespa Agreement was made.

For the Atlanticists, a rapid accession into NATO to contain and weaken Russian influence in North Macedonia and to also further constrain and pressurize Serbia was a higher priority than formalizing the Balkan country into the European neoliberal order as an official member. Although North Macedonia will undoubtedly join the EU eventually, it is not a matter of urgency as making the country into a NATO member. The Prespa Agreement is highly unpopular in both countries as they both feel they have lost out and did not achieve their objectives of promoting their interests with the name issue. NATO was unwilling to risk the Prespa Agreement failing and the name issue re-emerging which would once again put on hold North Macedonia’s accession into the organization.

North Macedonia cannot contribute to NATO in any meaningful way as it is a poor country of just over two million people and not close to the Russian border like the tiny Baltic states. Its accession into NATO is only for the purpose of weakening or preventing any Russian influence in the country and to further isolate Serbia. Despite North Macedonia being an overwhelmingly Orthodox and Slavic country that had the potential to become another pro-Russia state in the Balkans alongside neighboring Serbia, since its separation from Yugoslavia in 1991, Skopje pursued a pro-Western policy and joined the NATO program Partnership for Peace as early as 1995 and became a European Union candidate a decade later. Why North Macedonia has pursued such a Western-centric policy since its separation with Yugoslavia is not clearly understood, but it is certainly understood why NATO has accelerated North Macedonia’s membership into its organization.

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Security forces detained 97 people, from businesspeople to soldiers, in a new wave of operations against the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) on Tuesday. The manhunt was underway to capture more.

FETÖ, which faces increased scrutiny after its coup attempt in 2016, suffered losses due to counterterrorism operations being held on almost a daily basis.

In the western city of İzmir, prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 54 businessmen suspected of being in FETÖ’s network. Thirty-nine suspects have been detained so far in operations in İzmir, Istanbul, Aydın, Kütahya and Denizli. Some suspects were members of now-closed business associations run by FETÖ, which thrived on “donations” from rich members as well as extortion from small businesses.

Prosecutors in the capital Ankara launched an operation against FETÖ’s infiltrators in the top science body the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), where 14 out of 21 wanted suspects were arrested in operations. Suspects include both current and former employees of TÜBİTAK, as well as employees of defense company HAVELSAN. Also in Ankara, 23 out of 32 suspects wanted for ties to the group were detained. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office said suspects, including professors, were part of FETÖ’s network in GATA Health Sciences University, a military hospital turned into a university.

In the central city of Konya, authorities issued arrest warrants for 50 suspects who served as “secret imams” for FETÖ’s infiltrators in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). “Secret imam” was the term used by the terrorist group to refer to handlers or infiltrators. Fifteen of the suspects were detained while operations were underway to capture the others. Suspects were identified through the testimonies of other FETÖ handlers captured in earlier operations.

In the western city of Balıkesir, prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 24 suspects who were accused of serving as the terrorist group’s infiltrators in the courthouses and prisons. Suspects were mostly court clerks and prison guards and were in contact with the group’s civilian handlers, authorities said.

In the northwestern city of Kocaeli, prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 10 suspects linked to FETÖ’s military network. Six suspects were detained. The detained suspects include a teacher who served as a handler for FETÖ’s military infiltrators, four active-duty soldiers and five former soldiers.

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Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail, who are leading in the polls ahead of Saturday’s election, have said they will enact the Occupied Territories Bill

The bill seeks to ban the import or sale of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements (File photo/Reuters)

Two of Ireland’s biggest political parties have said that if they win Saturday’s general election they will implement a ban on the purchase of goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail have both indicated in their manifestos that they wish to see the Occupied Territories Bill enacted.

The legislation, first tabled in 2018, would prohibit imports from territories where there is a clear international legal consensus on the status of the occupation.

As it stands, only the occupied Palestinian territories have been confirmed as occupied by the International Court of Justice.

According to its manifesto, Sinn Fein has said it will “ban goods from Israel’s illegal colonial settlements in Palestine from entering the Irish market by implementing the Occupied Territories Bill”.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fail has said it would “progress the Occupied Territories Bill” in government.

If passed, the law would make Ireland the first European Union country to criminalise commercial activity in the settlements.

“We didn’t have to put it into our manifesto… but we insisted on doing so,” Niall Collins, a former foreign affairs spokesperson for Fianna Fail, told The Electronic Intifada.

The “next step in the process,” Collins said, would be the bill’s inclusion in a legislative programme that Fianna Fail agrees with another party – or parties – when forming a coalition.

“There are lots of issues relating to health, housing and homelessness here in Ireland. But our position on Palestine… is coming up on the doorsteps. People are showing a keen awareness of this issue.”

According to the latest opinion poll conducted ahead of the 8 February general election, Sinn Fein is leading with 24 percent, and Fianna Fail with 21 percent.

The legacy left by the trade unions, Ramsay MacDonald, Nye Bevan, Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Chris Williamson and Jeremy Corbyn has been squandered away to appease the right wing, apologists for Israel.

By Sam Bentley

The Labour Representation Committee was formed in 1900, and after winning 29 seats in the 1906 general election, became the Labour Party. It was formed by socialist groups like the Fabian Society coming together with the trade unions. Ramsay MacDonald was the first Labour prime minister in office in 1924, and again in 1929-35. MacDonald was determined that the party should have a broad, national appeal. He wanted the party to be firmly progressive, committed to individual freedom, and to the securing of power through existing democratic, parliamentary methods. By the time of the1945 general election Labour had a focused programme: a welfare state, selective nationalisation and full employment. In 1948 the National Health Service was formed and this was and still is the jewel in Labour’s crown (from “A Brief History of the Labour Party“, by Dr Jeremy Nuttall, March 2019 )

I have given you a very brief history of the beginnings of the Labour party so you can see what has been lost in the last four to five years since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party and the campaign of hate and manufactured allegations of anti-Semitism started.

Joan Ryan and the Israeli “diplomat” Shai Masot

In my opinion the campaign of hate and anti-Semitism smears began with Joan Ryan (then Labour MP for Enfield North) and Shai Masot an Israeli diplomat based at the Israeli embassy in London. They were secretly filmed conspiring on how to take down certain British MPs and the film was shown in a four part AlJazeera TV documentary ‘The Lobby‘. Joan Ryan is the chairwoman of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) a pro-Israeli group in which you do not have to be a member of the Labour party or Jewish to join. She embarked on a campaign of manufactured anti-Semitism allegations against Corbyn and Labour Party members which lasted several years up until her resignation from the Labour Party in February 2019. In her resignation speech she continued with her campaign of hate and accused Corbyn of demonising and delegitamising Israel, and stated that a government led by Corbyn “would be an existential threat” to the Jewish community.

Israel was not happy about the thought of Jeremy Corbyn forming a government… because it knew that if he became prime minister it would mean an end to military aid to Israel and Palestine would gain the support it deserves and needs.

The campaign of hate and manufactured anti-Semitism claims continued and in fact snowballed into what has become known as the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis”. This was the beginning of the eventual end of what was, for a while, a powerful voice for the working class and non-elitists… all achieved under the honest politics and policies of Jeremy Corbyn. Israel was not happy about the thought of Jeremy Corbyn forming a government – in my opinion this is because it knew that if he became prime minister it would mean an end to military aid to Israel and Palestine would gain the support it deserves and needs.

Margaret Hodge and Israel’s stooges in Labour

Sadly, Israel had and still has many allies within the Labour Party, the main one being Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking and a member of LFI. Margaret Hodge was embroiled in a child abuse scandal going back to the 1980s when she was head of Islington Council. It appears that she was aware of child abuse that happened at care homes she was responsible for but took no action. She received shares in a family company from a foundation based in a tax haven which is complete hypocrisy when you consider that as chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee she was viewed as a fierce critic of tax avoidance. After the referendum in 2016 Hodge attempted a coup against Corbyn but did not get the backing she needed, so she began a campaign of manufactured anti-Semitism claims against Corbyn, the left wing and supporters of Palestine.

Corbyn also soundly defeated her in a debate about Labour’s Clause 4 (the public ownership clause) in 1995, which in this writer’s opinion was the start of Hodge’s antipathy towards Corbyn. Despite Hodge refusing to apologise to the Labour leader for her defamation of him, Labour dropped the inquiry. Labour claimed she had expressed “regret” to the then chief Whip Nick Brown, Hodge denied this and Labour still let the matter drop. This was by no means the end of her campaign against Corbyn. In March 2019 she made a secret recording of a meeting she had with Corbyn, without his permission, and she passed the recording to the Sunday Times. Corbyn accused Hodge of a complete abuse of trust and privacy for her actions. Again, Labour took no action against her for this betrayal of trust and privacy.

In May 2019 Margaret Hodge committed an outright breach of Labour policy when she wrote an article in The Times advising readers to “Vote for a pro-EU party, not mine“. According to Labour Party membership rules (Rule 4 B), any member “who joins and / or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party” will “automatically be ineligible to be or remain a party member”. Despite this obvious breach of the aforementioned rule and despite complaints from other Labour Party members, once again Labour took no action against her. This complete disregard of the rules in favour of a member who had broken the rules on more than one occasion shrieks of favouritism and party bias, and certainly, for this writer, it was the beginning of the end for what had been a party “for the many, not the few”.

Victims of fabricated “anti-Semitism” claims

Jackie Walker, black Jewish Labour member

I know the main body of this article has been devoted to two people but they are people that I consider key to Corbyn stepping down as leader and the demise of the once socialist Labour Party. There are others that are key and they too will get a mention, but by this time the manufactured smear campaign had turned into a full scale witch hunt. One of the first Labour Party members targeted was Jackie Walker, a black Jewish woman who was vice-chairwoman of Momentum when Labour suspended her in October 2016. Walker was suspended for comments she made when attending a Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) training session. This is the comment for which she was suspended and the JLM among others sought her expulsion from the Labour Party. In her comment, walker said:

In terms of Holocaust Day, I would also like to say wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all peoples who have experienced holocaust?

JLM campaigns officer and Labour councillor Adam Langleben filmed Walker during the training and the Daily Telegraph published a story attacking her with the intent of having her suspended from the party. In 2019 director Jon Pullman released a documentary called WitchHunt . On the website of the documentary states:

In 2015, while the far right was gaining ground around the world, socialist MP Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of the UK Labour Party in a landslide victory. Accusations of anti-Semitism within the party immediately began to circulate. Well-known anti-racists and left-wing Jews, such as Jackie Walker, were amongst the chief targets [of the accusations].

Walker was interviewed for the film and spoke about her experience of being suspended, and this opened people’s eyes to what was happening to members within the Labour Party. Walker was expelled by Labour in March 2019; the group Jewish Voice for Labour called her expulsion “a travesty of justice” and a “shameful conclusion” to a flawed process.

Chris Williamson MP

Labour MP for Derby Chris Williamson booked a room in parliament to screen WitchHunt. The small pro-Corbyn group Jewish Voice for Labour was to host the screening. He was “dressed down” by chief whip Nick Brown and told to cancel the booking. That was the beginning of the smear campaign against Williamson and all because he defended a fellow Labour Party member who was also a fellow anti-racism activist. Footage also emerged of Williamson addressing a Momentum meeting in Sheffield and stating that Labour had been “too apologetic” over anti-Semitism. In February 2019 Williamson was suspended by the Labour Party over his remarks at the Momentum meeting. He was very briefly reinstated in June but was suspended again after a few hours due to an outcry from some fellow MPs, including Ruth Smeeth (another member of LFI). He resigned from the Labour Party in November 2019 after the NEC failed to lift his suspension, which meant he could not run as a Labour candidate in the general election. He then decided to run as an independent on a socialism platform.

Sam Bentley

I have not and will not be contesting my expulsion because I do not want to be in a party that favours millionaire members like Margaret Hodge over working class members like myself and others who have also been expelled for the most spurious of reasons.

This leads me to why I am writing this article. Two weeks ago I was expelled for retweeting a crowdfunder for Chris Williamson. The reason given was that I had broken the membership rule 4 B, ironically the same rule that Margaret Hodge broke and that I wrote about above. The thing is, the crowdfunding appeal was for his legal battle and nothing to do with the general election.

There currently seems to be a purge of left wing members going on within Labour, most especially those left wing members who also dare to criticise Israel and its occupation of Palestine.

I have not and will not be contesting my expulsion because I do not want to be in a party that favours millionaire members like Margaret Hodge over working class members like myself and others who have also been expelled for the most spurious of reasons, especially a party that is supposed to be for the working class. There currently seems to be a purge of left wing members going on within Labour, most especially those left wing members who also dare to criticise Israel and its occupation of Palestine. More and more Twitter users are telling of how they have been expelled from Labour and the flimsy reasons for why they have been expelled. Writer and blogger Asa Winstanley, who writes about what is happening in Palestine, was suspended about 18 months ago and last week he announced he had resigned from Labour. In the article he used to announce this, he wrote:

I did so to protest the party’s illegal mishandling of my private data, and because it is using its complaints system to conduct a political purge of members who support Palestinian rights.

And there it is, the recognition of the reason for Labour’s current purge. Corbyn is stepping down as leader in April and the choices we are left with for new leader do not instil much in the way of confidence that the party will once again be a party “for the many, not the few”.

Here is a litany of the others who, in my opinion, have contributed to the manufactured anti-Semitism claims, the WitchHunt and Corbyn stepping down:

Key Israel stooges and flag wavers

Margaret Hodge, Joan Ryan, Ruth Smeeth, Ian Austin, John Woodcock, Luciana Berger, Mike Gapes (all current or ex-Labour MPs); Jewish Labour Movement (led by Mike Katz); Labour Friends of Israel (led by Joan Ryan); Sussex Friends of Israel (started by Simon Cobbs and Fiona Sharpe); Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (Chairman Gideon Falter); Labour Against Anti-Semitism (led by Euan Phillips, Joanne Bell and Nicole Lampert); GnasherJew, a group of social media trolls and doxxers (John Arnott, Ray Baker, David Collier, Ambrosine Dipshit and others); Jewish Chronicle (Editor: Stephen Pollard) and other members of social media, the Labour Party and mainstream media – and the name behind it all is, of course, ISRAEL

I know this has been lengthy and perhaps tedious but it needed to be written. The opinions are my own and I have cited resources when used. Comments welcome but please be polite.

Nazi Occupied Ramallah: A human rights organization reported that the management of the Megiddo Nazi Camp informed the general counsel of the prisoners of the Fatah movement, the prisoner Izz al-Din al-Attar, that he was transferred to the solitary confinement cells.

In a statement, the Prisoners and Executives Affairs Authority stated that the prisoner, Al-Attar (37 years), from Tulkarm, has been detained since 2003 and has been sentenced to 21 years.

She indicated that he is one of the sick prisoners in the Nazi occupation Camp, as he suffers from severe pain because of discs in his back since the year 2004, and the prison administration continued to prevent him from treatment until 2010.

After that, the Nazi Camp administration transferred him to conduct medical exams and returned him to the prison without treatment. Several months ago, he transferred him to the hospital again, where he decided to perform surgery after his health condition worsened, and the severity of the pain on him caused him difficulty in walking.

The commission indicated that he has not yet undergone the surgery, and still depends on taking analgesics as a treatment.

Nazi Occupied Ramallah: The Nazi Occupation Prisons Administration has continued to detain 27 children in harsh and tragic conditions for the past month in Damoon Nazi Camp, accompanied by its intransigence and its refusal to respond to their demand to return them to Ofer Nazi Camp.

The Damon Nazi Camp administration also refuses to allow representatives of adult prisoners to manage and supervise the lives of the cubs, as is the case in prisons where the child prisoners are held, and their detention lives were managed before their transfer.

The prisoners considered that what is taking place with the children is a dangerous transformation, a new violation of their fate, and an attempt to steal one of the most important achievements of the captive movement historically, and with all the attempts that the prisoners make through dialogue and the implementation of rejecting protest steps, but they have not yet resulted in a decisive solution to the issue.

Suppression and assault

The Prisoners ‘Club says that, immediately after the Cubs’ administration was transferred to the Damon Nazi Camp, the repression forces carried out repeated repression and severe beatings on a group of them, and at least nine of them were transferred to the cells of the Jalameh Gestapo investigation center and the Salmon Nazi Camp in an attempt to pressure On them, to stop their protests. During the crackdowns, the child prisoners were held for hours with plastic restrictions and sprayed with gas.

One of the children who was later released from the department confirmed that the color of their hands tended to black due to the restrictions, and that the oppressive forces deliberately beat their heads in the walls, as well as they were present around the clock in the section to intimidate and attack them, and the administration detained the “Kantina” that they had , Claiming that she was returned to the prisoners in Ofer Nazi Camp.

Prisoners faced children throughout the month of these measures, with a set of steps, including returning meals, and hunger strikes for days, whereby those who were beaten were threatened with undressing and leaving him naked and assaulted, and yet the children continued their protests and their rejection of the tragic conditions imposed on them.

Section mode

The prisoners described the children in which they lived as “dirty” and that it was like a basement under the sun that does not enter the sun, and some rooms do not have windows for ventilation, and insects, cockroaches and mice are spread in it, and its smell is foul, and the “fortune” square is a passage between the main section The rooms are very small, and the bathrooms are exposed, where they are forced to use mattresses as curtains.

Prisoners are forced to sleep in dirty mattresses, in an attempt to bring warmth, and a group of them are forced to carry their shoes throughout the night in order to get rid of the insects around them.

As for the food, it is a box of milk and a loaf of bread that is divided for each room, and a grain of “clementine” and cucumber, sometimes rice is brought as breakfast, while lunch contains a dish of hard pasta, which has an unpleasant smell, while dinner is semi-raw beans. Water is polluted and yellowish, yet they have to use it as no substitute.

Most children suffer from chest pain due to a cold, cannot sleep due to a cough, and prison administration is sufficient to give them painkillers.

Impose sanctions on them

The Nazi Camp administration imposed upon them punishments represented by denying them four-month visits, imposing financial fines on them, and forcing a prisoner to take off his clothes in the bitter cold to isolate al-Jalameh Nazi Camp to pressure him to suspend his hunger strike, which was really the case, as the child did not tolerate The severe cold forced him to suspend the strike, and was sent back to Damoun Nazi Camp.

In response to this, the Al-Asir Club renewed its demand for human rights institutions, headed by the Red Cross, to put an end to the issue of child prisoners in the Damoon Nazi Camp, and all forms of abuse, including ill-treatment, physical and psychological torture to which children are exposed in the Nazi occupation prisons, and that actually begins from the moment of arrest.